Roxann (Karonhiarokwas) Whitebean is an independent film director and media artist from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake (

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Career

Whitebean started her career in film and television as an executive producer's assistant for the first season of television series ''

Mohawk Girls ''Mohawk Girls'' is a 2005 documentary film by Tracey Deer about the experiences of adolescent girls growing up on the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, across the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal, Quebec. Deer, who was born and raised in Kahnawake, f ...

.'' She pursued as the extras casting director and 3rd assistant director during the second and third season of the show. She wrote, directed and produced her first short fiction film, '' Legend of the Storm'', with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Starring Noelani Jasmine Rourke in the role of the young protagonist Otsistas, and filmed on location in Kahnawake, ''Legend of the Storm'' is a "poetic allegory" inspired by Whitebean's experience as a child living through the events of the

Oka crisis The Oka Crisis (french: links=no, Crise d'Oka), also known as the Kanehsatà:ke Resistance (), was a land rights, land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada, which began on July 11, 1990, and lasted 78 day ...

in 1990. The film was premièred at the Montreal First Peoples' Festival in 2015 alongside film director

Alanis Obomsawin Alanis Obomsawin, (born August 31, 1932) is an Abenaki American Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has writ ...

’s documentary '' Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance'', to mark the 25th anniversary of the crisis. Three days after completing the filming of ''Legend of the Storm'', Whitebean was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Over the following eighteen months, she documented her fight against her illness, including her choice to mix traditional aboriginal medicine and modern oncological treatments (including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and a double mastectomy). It was turned into the 5-part CBC documentary series '' Thunder Blanket'' (2016), described as "surprisingly sentimental, but it also contain some poignant and touching moments about the emotional and physical toll of living with cancer" by Jules Morgan in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology. In the last instalment of the documentary series, Whitebean indicates that she already started working on a new film project "based on the 'cancer monster' that appeared in her dreams". In 2015, she won the Drama Pitch Prize at the

ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto in the month of October. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Abori ...

Film and media arts festival in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, and was selected as an Aboriginal Filmmaker Fellowship recipient at the

Whistler Film Festival The Whistler Film Festival (WFF) is an annual film festival held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 2001, the festival is held the first weekend of December and includes juried competitive sections, the Borsos Awards, and the Pand ...

in Whistler, Canada, for her short film project '' The Paradigm.'' In 2016, Whitebean participated in the National Screen Institute's Aboriginal Documentary program, which provides training for teams of producers and directors aspiring to make short documentaries. During this ten-month long program, she produced the short documentary Flat Rocks (dir. Courtney Montour), then made available on APTN and NFB online streaming websites. Whitebean also directed the CBC short digital documentary '' Precious Things'' about language revitalization efforts in Kahnawake as part of the CBC Short Docs: Indigenous series as part of the festivities of Canada's 150th anniversary. She participates as a producer's assistant and researcher to the new television show ''Dream Big'' (created by

Tracey Deer Tracey Penelope ''Tekahentakwa'' Deer (born February 28, 1978, Mohawk nation, Mohawk) is a screenwriter, film director and newspaper publisher based in Kahnawake, Quebec. Deer has written and directed several award-winning documentaries for Rezol ...

and Rachelle White Wind), about the dream careers of thirteen Indigenous youth and their encounters with mentors from these fields.

Filmography

Director: *Rose (2022) Telefilm Canada *Pulse (2022) APTN * The Haudenosaunee Canoe Journey (Feature Documentary) (2020) APTN, * Skindigenous (season 2 & 3) (Television Series) APTN,

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

* Enhior'hen:ne omorrow(2019) Cinema Politica * Living Culture/Speaking Truth (2018) Indigenous Leadership Institute * Raven's Quest (2018-2022) (Television Series)

TVO TVO (stylized as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates flagship station CICA-DT (channel 19) in To ...

* Little Hard Knox (2017) CBC *'' The Paradigm'' (2016)

The Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal in ...

*'' Karihwanoron: Precious Things'' (2017) CBC * '' Thunder Blanket'' (2016) (documentary series, 5 episodes) (co-directed with Brittany Leborgne) * '' Legend of the Storm'' (2015) (short) Producer: *Flat Rocks (2016) APTN dir. Courtney Montour) Producer's Assistant / Researcher: * ''Dream Big'' (2017) (television series)

Writing

* ''Broken'' * ''

SkyMed ''SkyMed'' is a Canadian television medical drama series, which premiered on July 10, 2022 on CBC Television. The series centres on the nurses and pilots working for an air ambulance service in remote northern Manitoba. The series has been renewe ...

'' (2022) *

Diggstown ''Diggstown'' (known as ''Midnight Sting'' in the UK), is a 1992 American sports comedy-drama film directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Steven McKay, based on the 1978 novel ''The Diggstown Ringers'' by Leonard Wise. It stars James Woods ...

, season 4 (2022)

Awards and honours

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitebean, Roxann 21st-century Canadian screenwriters Canadian documentary film directors Canadian documentary film producers Canadian Mohawk women writers Canadian Mohawk writers Canadian women documentary filmmakers Canadian women film directors Canadian women film producers Canadian women screenwriters Film directors from Quebec Canadian Mohawk filmmakers Living people Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke people Year of birth missing (living people)